Here comes the Sun conference

The company plans to announce several new iterations of its famed Java technology, including a new mobile version called JavaFX. This will “will enable a really rich, slick-looking mobile device,” said Sun spokesperson Shawn Dainas. “Handset manufacturers and phone providers would be able to provide these types of devices.”

Sun will unveil this mockup of a cellphone with its new JavaFX software — something that can compete with Apple’s forthcoming iPhone — at Tuesday’s JavaOne Conference in San Francisco.

Dainas likened the resulting phone to the hotly anticipate Apple iPhone, due out next month. But he cautioned, even as he released a photo of a mockup (left), “We’re not introducing a phone. We’re introducing software to make this possible.”

While Sun plans to sell JavaFX Mobile to the makers of phones and other devices, it will also give away its open source JavaFX Script for developers to use to create applications for the 5 billion devices that already run Java.